I went to see a local production of the musical Rent on Wednesday. I seriously enjoyed it - sure the actors were out of tune sometimes but it made me laugh and cry and not want it to end so I think they did their job!
It brought up a conversation with the two people I went with - they're probably about 10 years older than me, so they were a little more aware/alive when the AIDS epidemic was happening in the 80s and early 90s. My parents have always told me about friends of theirs who died from AIDS but I wasn't really aware of how severe the situation was until I visited San Francisco earlier this year and visited Castro with one of my dad's friends. I didn't realise how the community was decimated by this illness that no one knew how to treat. (We still don't have a complete cure, just drugs to suppress it if you have the money to pay for them.)
I think it's interesting how this big event seems to have disappeared from the Western public's consciousness so quickly. Sure, we've all seen the bowling ball grim reaper ads, but I'm sure we think that it would never happen to anyone we know, that that only happens in Africa now, and I think people my age find it hard to imagine what it was like to be living when the epidemic was going on.
I'm planning on checking out this documentary about the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, have a look at the trailer if you're interested in hearing about it.
I went to Harvest Festival in Sydney over the weekend. It was one of the best festivals I have ever been to (second only to Womadelaide.)
Good points:
The excellent line-up. I had never seen any of the bands on the line up before. It was a 90s music lover's paradise. I had three absolute highlight acts when usually there is only one. The good natured crowd. For me the one thing that can ruin a great festival is the crowd. At Harvest there were no neon singlets in sight, drunk/drugged people were at a minimum, there was no shoving and there were a limited number of people on other people's shoulders. People really seemed to be there for the music, not to be seen. Great crowd. Great style. At some stages during the festival my friend and I just sat and watched everyone walking around. As another friend said earlier this week - I've never been somewhere where everyone looked so effortlessly effortless. It was fun to see what different people were wearing.
Good organisation. The timetable was set out really well so that you could catch most of the acts if you wanted to. Beirut cancelled on short notice and you couldn't even tell, everything was seamless and to schedule. Great stages and setting. The Great Plain was my favourite stage - a massive natural ampitheatre which was never overcrowded. The stages were close together without too much sound crossover. It was also lovely having it in a park with the trees and shrubbery (Monty Python anyone?) The sideshows. I've never been to a day festival with so many sideshows - it was nice that they put the effort in to put random artists on the side and have so many wandering art installations (eg the dancing robot complete with girls in lab coats and the forest on stilts.) Free bananas. They had free bananas - yummy, healthy, instant food that you can eat while dancing up a storm at the stage that you made it to since you didn't have to wait in line. Best festival idea ever! They are also great dance accessories. Lots of free water. I get really dehydrated at festivals but don't want to lug around a massive 2 L bottle so it was nice that they had water stations at all the main stages. Toilets. We all know that festival toilets generally leave a lot to be desired. However, at Harvest there were only a few messy ones, they were all flush toilets, they never seemed to run out of toilet paper and you never had to wait in line for more than 2 songs for a toilet. Speaking of which - the toilets were right next to the stages with a great view so you didn't feel like you were missing out anyway!
Not-so-good points:
Crowded trains are fun
The food. It wasn't as multicultural/vegetarian/interesting as I expected. There was one vegetarian booth that was great, but next year it would be awesome if they had more like that. Post-festival transport. The concert organisers appear to not have notified the police or train systems that the concert was on. They told everyone to take public transport but then didn't get the train system to put on extra trains or open extra ticket machines so there was only one train going every half an hour and a huge line for the ticket booth. It ended up taking me 2.5 hours to get home from Parramatta to Maroubra via train and then taxi when it should have only taken about 1.5 hours with room for delay. However, the crowd was so patient and helpful that it ended up not being too much of a bother.
Who I saw
Sigur Ros
Dexys (Highlight: Come on Eileen) The Dandy Warhols (Highlight: Bohemian like you) Mike Patton's Mondo Cane (Highlight: Urlo Negro, but to be honest, any time he was on stage was a highlight, particularly when screaming or loudspeakers were involved. He's the ex-frontman of Faith No More and this endeavour involves him covering various 1960s Italian pop songs with an orchestra. Amazing.) Cake (Highlight: Never there) Ben Folds Five (Highlight: Song for the Dumped) Grizzly Bear (Highlight: Yet Again) Sigur Ros (Highlight: Sæglópur, but really, anything. At one point they were playing their guitars with bows which was amazing. Much heavier live than on CD but I liked that.)
So I ended up having a crazy awesome weekend that feels like it is still going (I just got home from the Banff Mountain Film Festival Radical Reels tour). I'm having the day off work tomorrow (hooray!) so hopefully I will find some time to catch everything up with the challenge and do a review of Harvest. Here's a teaser - my favourite act ended up being this guy:
Totally unexpected!
(And for good measure, here is the Radical Reels trailer)
I've seen a lot of good films lately due to the Canberra International Film Festival (CIFF) being on. I'm generally fairly hard to please when it comes to movies so I was quite surprised when two of the movies I've seen in the last few weeks have made me want to go out and buy the DVD. So if you're looking to see a good movie check these two out:
Poster courtesy of IMDB
I saw this movie last night as part of my CIFF membership. It details the final year of a coach's run of coaching at Mannassas Highschool in Memphis, Tennessee and the stories of some of the kids on the team. It will make you bawl while you are grinning your face off. It's out on DVD, so hightail it to your DVD store and check it out.
This movie is still in theatres in Canberra so hopefully it is where you are too, because you should go and see it! It is based on the true story of a quadraplegic man in France (yes, it has subtitles), the man he hires to care for him and the hijinks they get up to together. I loved every second of this movie. Stellar acting by both of the leads. For those who have known me for a long time, take note of the fact that it almost beats 500 Days of Summer in how much I love it. That is a big statement for me...
